Archive for the ‘Social anthropology’ Category

The time is coming for the final minutes of diploma work. Now, I take a moment to review some of the most important reviews I’ve had in the past months, trying to extract some useful ideas for what will be my final presentation.

The following was commented on a tutorial headed by Gisle Løkken, and with the participation of other students on May 25th:

– To propose Rosengård as a kind of temporary tax-haven, with site-specific trade laws to allow commerce to flourish more easily.

– How would economic development affect the community? What would change in the face of the neighborhood in relation to this development? And how would these changes relate to the people who live there? Think of this project’s evolution in time: (un)projected growth.

– Gardening vs Farming: what is more realistic and productive for a place like Rosengård? Show this in the project, make plant-growing a VISIBLE activity.

– “I wanna see the goats” – Can Rosengård have space for activities like shepharding, and other seemingly out-of-place trades?

– The meaning of work as a tool, socially and ethically, in human development, applied to the people who live in Rosengård.

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On Thursday 27th and Friday 28th of May, the Third Confrontation for the diploma took place in the school. Working under Trudi Jaeger (DAV) and Sverre Sondresen (APP), the following are points that were mentioned in relation to my project:

– The project as a reason for people to stay in Rosengård. So far, people have very few reasons to stay in the community. Could this project be a start for change?

– Joint solutions coming from both the authorities and the people.

– A bazaar proposal that makes use of the public AND the private space. Not only as a “new” activity built in space, but also making use of existing spaces: firs t floors, corner shops, etc.

– The project as a multicultural quilt, where every patch is equally valuable and yet as unique and “on display” as the rest.

– The bazaar: a nice place to be, a nice place to visit. Visiting Rosengård has the great potential of acting as a reality check: people coming here to a bazaar will find a community eager to work and earn a better life, opposed to the riots that Rosengård is known for.

– Simplify my registration drawings, keeping the energy and feelings found in them while incorporating colour to represent the variety found in Rosengård.

– The pic-nic blanket: a place to display, make evident and share.

– Build more models of the actual projects, in different scales. Explore materiality (remember the differences between shopping mall and bazaar when it comes to the sensorial experience), use and scale for design purposes. Very important now.

– If you are too realist, you end up becoming a pessimist. Therefore, it is important to remember the poetry of dreaming.

– Graffiti as a way to deal with frustration and establish an identity. Rosengård is notoriously devoid of graffiti, is this the sign of a population that does not want to be associated with their neighborhood? Additionally, could architecture offer a chance to reterritorialize the neighborhood and make it “valid” to display your pride to live in Rosengård?

– “Graffiti is like when dogs pee. They are not vandalizing a wall. They are defining their territory.”

– Define a strategy / timeline: how does the project grow and evolve? Who does it affect? What will the actions cause? Can it be a kind of chain reaction, where small actions end up causing full blown effects? This is already suggested in the yellow Post Its (see previous entries).

– Use drawings as a design and exploration tool: draw in big sizes (scale up); incorporate to exhibition space; work on the same drawings throughout a span of time – evolution; print on transparent paper for further exploration; use drawings to re-structure the spatial reality of the neighborhood and the project.

We asked all the students in the group to present their projects concisely with a short synopsis. Sverre and I didn’t know anything. They were given 20 minutes each before lunch. The group were already collaborating with each other and were much more familiar with each others projects than either Sverre or I so we consigned everyone with a specific student. They were asked to give their person specific advice about what to concentrate on according to where they were in the process: i.e. to reflect upon a core issue. We others could then either disagree or elaborate on these observations.

Roberto:

Flying kites in the ghetto.

Malmø is one of the fastest-growing migrant areas in Scandinavia.

Bazaar – place where people can utilize and share their skills.

Roberto has vibrant drawing skills! This talent should be used! Make Graffiti idea much larger. Test it out in public space with participants.

A strategy on timeline – what it generates – a new structure.

Add something – open up.

Should focus his project on public space(s).

Discussion about graffiti, about conquering and taking space. The energy this sort of people-participation project would create, if, for example, people from different cultures were encouraged to ‘take’ their space.

Roberto should get locals to make their own marks in the area.

He should start concentrating by building a working model in i.e. 1-25 in order to develop the inter-relationships of the different cultural spaces and their interfaces.

——

On June 9th, I had a tutorial with Vibeke Jensen. We discussed the following (I add my own thoughts in this text):

0. General comments

– Explore the conceptual models more and more.

– Integrate gardening into activities like the skate park, and other functions as well. Why should this activity be confined to the colonial gardens?

– Work quickly with conceptual models, and move on to design.

– What I show does not necessarily need to be a finished product in itself, but it should enough detail and information to be understandable.

– Consider other activities and forms of expression, such as hand ad-painting, gossiping, etc.

1. The bazaar – Herrgården

– Make a model that shows inside space, not just the outside. Think of negative, carved space.

– The management of scale is good for the neighborhood’s inhuman conditions.

– An “exploded block” is a good concept. It shows the potential of a single block, the basic construction unit of Rosengård. Explore further consequences of this idea.

2. The promenade – Kryddgården

– The use of lines as a landscape-intervention concept is OK, but they should be soft, adding some contrast to the existing geometry.

– I should define the situations to happen between the buildings: the urban stages, sheltered spaces, community meeting points, etc.

– Integrate this intervention to the landscape, make it a part of the context and not just something that “landed there”.

– How much of a line do I need to show, in order to make a line? What does a line have to offer?

– Think of softer materials.

3. The skate park – Örtagården

– Keep in mind that it can be an activity that includes many people, not just young skateboarders. It can be a meeting point for people interested in urban culture, photography, curious neighbors… even grandmas. I don’t skate myself, I’m almost 30 and yet I am more interested than I ever was, in these activities.

– It can be a kind of agora, a meeting point where things happen. A change in Rosengård’s monofunctionality.

4. 1:1 Sketch

– Make architecture, create space!

– Construct situations, think of the situationist movement?

– Documentate, and get people included.

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Extracts from a June 9th conversation with Camilla Ryhl, KTF:

– Accesible architecture should not only be functional, but also available and open.

– When a person lacks one sense, the other senses sharpen. Think of how these other senses can be stimulated through architecture.

– Ground surfaces and materials can give a good amount of information.

– Be careful when it comes to overstimulation.

The bazaar

– Check out Gjellerup Parken in Aarhus.

– Shopping centres can be a difficult environment for the visually impaird. They offer no visual nagivational clues. They are the same in every direction. They are usually disconnected from their context.

– Take the characteristics of a shopping centre and create a contrast.

– Different-sized units and activity-enclaves in Rosengård are good ideas. They provide a sensorial spatial configuration.

– When it comes to the bazaar, take a couple of units and develop: how do they relate? What happens in between the units?

The skate park

– How do disabled people interact with it?

– A generational meeting place.

– Give more reasons for people to come here.

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Tutorial with Erling Olsen, TTA. June 15th, 2010. I intend to use different materials according to the needs of my sites. These are general comments from this conversation:

– Wood is slippery, but can be transformed and manipulated by people, as opposed to concrete, which offers little chance for interaction.

– Create friction in the surfaces. Winters and water can be dangerous.

– If I use wood, think that it won’t last forever, it will probably have to be replaced every 5 to 10 years. Additionally, wood expands and contracts and is vulnerable to fungus, so it must be isolated from moisture (rubber is a good option for this), both on roof and ground. If this wood is dry, it will last a long time.

– Think of detailing. Show how this will be built.

—–

Tutorial with Ivo Barros, Sivilarkitekt BAS. June 16th, 2010.

– How do I come to this place? Go from Zoom Out to Zoom In.

– Put my maps in order and try to read a coherent story there. From Scandinavia to Rosengård.

– Show Rosengård in relation to the city of Malmö and its context.

– Work as a masterplan, but show some areas more in detail -à Explain why I chose the sites I work with. Start working in a larger scale and then show how things meet.

– The relation of the intervention with the rest of the city: why would people from Malmö come to Rosengård? -à Think of the comparative advantages of my project and show them.

– Expand my interventions all the way to the main roads that limit Rosengård, and create invitations.

– Use my experience as a foreigner to my own advantage. I have some first-hand knowledge and different takes on issues like urban life, fear, etc.

DAV: the under-used tool

– Use DAV as an exploratory tool. Work with photos and drawings. Explore the 5 small conceptual models and work with them as ways to understand space.

On Thursday 27th and Friday 28th of May, the Third Confrontation for the diploma took place in the school. Working under Trudi Jaeger (DAV) and Sverre Sondresen (APP), the following are points that were mentioned in relation to my project:

– The project as a reason for people to stay in Rosengård. So far, people have very few reasons to stay in the community. Could this project be a start for change?

– Joint solutions coming from both the authorities and the people.

– A bazaar proposal that makes use of the public AND the private space. Not only as a “new” activity built in space, but also making use of existing spaces: firs t floors, corner shops, etc.

– The project as a multicultural quilt, where every patch is equally valuable and yet as unique and “on display” as the rest.

– The bazaar: a nice place to be, a nice place to visit. Visiting Rosengård has the great potential of acting as a reality check: people coming here to a bazaar will find a community eager to work and earn a better life, opposed to the riots that Rosengård is known for.

– Simplify my registration drawings, keeping the energy and feelings found in them while incorporating colour to represent the variety found in Rosengård.

– The pic-nic blanket: a place to display, make evident and share.

– Build more models of the actual projects, in different scales. Explore materiality (remember the differences between shopping mall and bazaar when it comes to the sensorial experience), use and scale for design purposes. Very important now.

– If you are too realist, you end up becoming a pessimist. Therefore, it is important to remember the poetry of dreaming.

– Graffiti as a way to deal with frustration and establish an identity. Rosengård is notoriously devoid of graffiti, is this the sign of a population that does not want to be associated with their neighborhood? Additionally, could architecture offer a chance to reterritorialize the neighborhood and make it “valid” to display your pride to live in Rosengård?

– “Graffiti is like when dogs pee. They are not vandalizing a wall. They are defining their territory.”

– Define a strategy / timeline: how does the project grow and evolve? Who does it affect? What will the actions cause? Can it be a kind of chain reaction, where small actions end up causing full blown effects? This is already suggested in the yellow Post Its (see previous entries).

– Use drawings as a design and exploration tool: draw in big sizes (scale up); incorporate to exhibition space; work on the same drawings throughout a span of time – evolution; print on transparent paper for further exploration; use drawings to re-structure the spatial reality of the neighborhood and the project.

“We are proud (…) to use the city”

OS GEMEOS : Hate and love, to live in a country where you have to survive, the look of a child begging you for money in the street, to live in a country where the government does not care about you and there are no laws, where people are paid shitty salaries and you still manage to continue smiling, to wake up one day and realise it was all a dream. Fanatism, the lack of unity, vanity and ego, jealousy, people who needs others to be someone, people who use other people, love. We are proud to be Brazilian and from Sao Paulo, to know that what we believe in actually exists, to write and misspell in Portuguese, to live moments that feel like eternity, to use firecrackers in the street, start fires in the stret, to lie to the police, to know that our family loves us, to do things without thinking, to climb up a ladder without a t-shirt, to be South American, to use the city, of ugly things, to know that we fly in the mist, to make paper boats that float in the rain.

Can you describe the feeling that forms between you, when you two paint?

OS GEMEOS : It is defined all in one thing: we do whatever we wanna do, every path is traced, we just do our part, this is our mission, painting time is sacred.

Would you say telepathy is involved?

OS GEMEOS : Yeah, that’s how we are nowadays: I think and my brother does what I just thought. He thinks and I automatically say or do what he just thought.

Graffiti is a means of expression constantly moving in a dicotomy: it is praised by some, and satanized by others. Cities and administrators do all they can to keep subway wagons and museum facades free of them, while at the same time anonymous writers prepare their spray cans for a new piece. Reading in between lines here, graffiti appears to hold a potential as a gap-closer: it is a strong community storyteller, in which the feelings are expressed and opinions are formed. Jokes are made, and social comments are shared (such as in Banksy’s work). How does urban space address graffiti?

Before my first visit to Rosengård, I pictured in my mind all those endless ghetto walls covered in writings and drawings with a thousand stories about those who live there. My first day there was disappointing: the biggest graffiti I saw was the size of a TV. No political-support messages, no love declarations, no gang territorial statements. Is this community mute, or is it told to shut up? When an architect designs a space which allows for graffiti, are they legalizing the forbidden? Is it a way to let people speak, or will the neighborhood look trashy?

The silence I witnessed in Rosengård’s walls can hardly be reconciled with its lack of peace.

A pre-school in Malmö’s Rosengård district was shut down on Monday morning in the interests of staff safety following an extended period of threats and harassment from a gang of local youths.

Henrik Wolter, a health and safety representative for the Swedish Teachers’ Union, took the decision to close the pre-school with immediate effect following consultation with district leaders.

The 34 children who attend the Herrgården pre-school have been moved temporarily to a school in Käglinge in south-east Malmö, but district chief Eva Ahlgren expects the children to move to a new location in Rosengård on Wednesday. In the longer term, places have been set aside for the children at a pre-school affiliated with Rosengård School, which is currently being extended.

“The closure of Herrgården’s pre-school was necessary. Staff have been repeatedly exposed to fighting and harassment. On one occasion a glass bottle was thrown from a window at one of the employees,” said Ahlgren.

She added that she had not previously been aware of the problem.

The pre-school is located in an area at the centre of a housing standards scandal last year when its run-down apartment complexes were found to be riddled with mould and cockroaches.

Herrgården has also served as a flashpoint for many of the disturbances that have plagued the predominantly immigrant suburb of Rosengård in recent years.

Around the pre-school lie shards of glass while the front of the building is marked by a bullet hole, the source of which is unknown.

“This is caused by gangs of criminal youths, or idiots as I usually call them,” Andreas Konstantinides, chairman of the Rosengård district council, told the online edition of the Svenska Dagbladet daily.

The social landscape has many layers, which have different actors and often, different yet intertangled causes. Architecture is a one tool in a bigger panorama, and it must work together with other disciplines in order to address the situation through a wider scope. At the time of its creation, Rosengård was thought of as a one-time solution for the housing deficit in 1960’s Sweden, but as it has become visible after some time, single-minded efforts often leave a number of questions unanswered.

However, architecture must operate on different levels. Contrary to what has been said, space is not the prime matter or architecture (or at least not always). Some times we come across potential situations where people are the prime matter we have to work with and shape, and thus we as architects must address problems through a wider perspective, but also we must be humble before the magnitude of the challenges we face.

So, you’re a happy toddler until one day dad (or, if you’re lucky, the whole family) has to move. Sure, many people move during their lives, but what happens when you move to another country, with another language and another understanding of the world. If you’re young enough, chances are you’ll have little problem learning the language and sumberging yourself in your new country. But at the same time, your parents may experience quite the opposite: anxiety, fear, isolation… the feeling of being a fish out of water. How does exile affect close personal relations?

Being Rosengård a transition point between the outside world and the Swedish life, as an architect one has to wonder: how does space contribute to close or increase this emotional and cultural gap?

This is the theory behind my project. Basically, I state that the current configuration of the public space in Rosengård has 5 consequences:

1. It weakens the social experience. A poorly designed public space transfers its functions to other contexts, such as sport clubs or mosques, restricting or cancelling potential social experiences.

Where have all the folks gone?

2. It rationalizes randomnes. One notorious characteristic of the public space is that it gives its users the chance to get in touch and meet random people. When this is lost, mistrust to strangers builds up.3. It affects the way people experience their community. When people love their neighborhood, they will be more prone to take care of it.4. Restricting self expression. A non-inclusive public space such as the one present in most of Rosengård, leaves out many of its inhabitants and their lifestyles, experiences and ways of expression. It is non-democratic.5. It affects the group experience. It is in public places that a community will display support, opposition, diversity, opinions, etc. Additionally, it is in public areas that many activities become validated and legitimate, such as busking, preaching, skateboarding, etc. The public space in every community holds the potential of being a place for social self-definition and discovery.